Random News not worthy of own thread

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Vertigo 7
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Re: Random News not worthy of own thread

Post by Vertigo 7 » Fri, 6. Aug 21, 15:12

@felter, to play devil's advocate, it is illegal, at least in the US, to store or transmit child porn. It's likely in their own interests to do their due diligence to avoid liability if their services are being used for it. And besides, a hash is just a hash. It's not the actual data itself so if they hashed everything you store, it won't amount to jack squat unless they have a known hash that matches against something you have stored there.
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Re: Random News not worthy of own thread

Post by mr.WHO » Fri, 6. Aug 21, 19:03

It makes me wonder - if they want to make working solution that will be able to search it effectively there must be some kind of database for reference - whoever is responsible for maintenance of such database and search model must have a real f*** up job, by being exposed to worst the humanity. I bet whoever is working on that, when is walking down the street is looking at people all around completely different.

Second thought - if it will be something like automatic bot of YT then it will be really crazy.
I recall Facebook has such bot and it still crappy at it's job - like ignoring obvious cases while flaging something completely unrelated.


Anyway here is a YT video how machine learning algorithm work and explain why bots do these kind of mistakes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9OHn5ZF4Uo


BTW Theoretically, with good enough algorithm and big data you would be able to do the crime prediction, like in "Minority Report" or "Psyho-Pass".

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Re: Random News not worthy of own thread

Post by burger1 » Tue, 10. Aug 21, 10:19

Some Gigabyte power supplies faulty. Gigabyte's GP-P750GM & GP-P850GM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aACtT_rzToI

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Re: Random News not worthy of own thread

Post by jlehtone » Tue, 10. Aug 21, 12:09

Unrelated, Gigabyte suffered a cyberattack too. https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/s ... ansomware/

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Re: Random News not worthy of own thread

Post by felter » Tue, 10. Aug 21, 16:33

Vertigo 7 wrote:
Fri, 6. Aug 21, 15:12
@felter, to play devil's advocate, it is illegal, at least in the US, to store or transmit child porn. It's likely in their own interests to do their due diligence to avoid liability if their services are being used for it. And besides, a hash is just a hash. It's not the actual data itself so if they hashed everything you store, it won't amount to jack squat unless they have a known hash that matches against something you have stored there.
I will quote what apple has said:
Apple says that it will manually review each report to confirm there is a match. It can then take steps to disable a user's account and report to law enforcement.
I have underlined the important part. What they are saying is if their system detects a possible picture containing child pornography, they will download and visually inspect that picture before deciding whether to send a complaint to the police. So they are going to have at least one person who they have decided is allowed to view child pornography. Considering everything that has been going on with Activision|Blizzard right now, do you think that an American companies executives should be making these kinds of decision. What are they going to do if they discover this person or people are taking their work home with them, do you think they are going to report themselves to the police and face the consequences, let alone how are they even going to decide who looks at those pictures. Here in the UK if they were to do this they would be prosecuted, it doesn't matter what the reason they would still be viewing child pornography and that is illegal here.

I do suspect that they would not just send an unreviewed picture to the police claiming it as porn, as if it wasn't, they would be making a pretty big allegation against someone and once an allegation like that is made, whether it is deemed true or not that person would always be on a police record as a suspect in child pornography, and it would affect the rest of their lives. Just imagine if it happened to someone and later on in life they try to adopt a child, on a background check they would come back as unsuitable due to an allegation of child pornography. So Apple are not going to blindly send pictures to the police claiming it as possible child pornography without actually knowing what that picture is, as that could open up a legal nightmare that they most certainly don't want to get into. So they will decide on someone who can look at those pictures and make a decision on what it actually is, to cover their own ass, but who gets to look and who decides who that person is. That is what I'm getting at, American Corporate Executives should not be making these kinds of decisions, and it saddens me that people actually think it is okay.
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Re: Random News not worthy of own thread

Post by Vertigo 7 » Tue, 10. Aug 21, 17:07

Well a couple of things there.

Let's say apple turns over data to the FBI that says Joe Diddleworth has kiddie porn in his icloud account. If they can't confirm it as true, nothing happens. It'd be no different than if I accused you of having child porn. Making that statement alone doesn't amount to a thing and being falsely accused doesn't appear on any government records, at least ones that would damage you. The accuser, otoh, would likely face repercussions for filing false police reports.

However, if they do turn up kiddie porn and turn that over to the FBI, then what's the problem? I'm all for putting pedos under the jail.

As far as what's going on with Activision, I don't see what relevance that has to Apple. They are separate companies run by completely different people. We have millions of businesses and sussing out kiddie porn is nothing new. Hell, the Navy routinely screened for porn on their computers and would court martial anyone found to have kiddie porn and beastiality on their machines back in the early 2000's and give a stern talking to for "legal" stuff. The only difference between the military and a private company in this case is the military has the authority to try and convict their service members internally where as businesses have to use law enforcement and the courts to deal with criminal activities.
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Re: Random News not worthy of own thread

Post by mr.WHO » Tue, 10. Aug 21, 17:51

I'd argue that privacy argument ends when someone consciously using the cloud in a first place.


On the other hand how Joe Diddleworth can prove if it was Apple who placed that on the cloud?
They have full control over cloud and knowledge of hardware and in the end the system greatest flaw is human factor.

What if Joe Diddleworth is a political activist?
Or even non political, but in some way on Apple blacklist (there is YT channel with a guy who has Apple repair shop and was exposing Apple bad repair service practices)?


I'd say the obvious choice would be to stop using Apple, but a few months ago Win10 basically conned me and put MyDocuments into cloud - there was a pop-up about "making a backup" with no mention of a cloud at all - I had to waste half an hour to switch it off coz my X4 saves took almost all of cloud storage.

If Microsoft ever try to push for cloud only, I'll say goodbye to Windows (albeit I doubt they will have enought storage space anytime soon, like in decade or two).
Last edited by mr.WHO on Tue, 10. Aug 21, 19:15, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Random News not worthy of own thread

Post by BaronVerde » Tue, 10. Aug 21, 19:04

The case of water on Mars. Sediments in Gale crater, found by the rover Curiosity have been explained as a remnant of a long gone water lake in the crater, that was the working hypothesis.

Now, it seems it was a premature deduction. These guys (https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/7/32/eabh2687) suggest that much can be easier explained by wind deposition (aeolian) and chemical alteration under atmopsheric influence.

Pop-Science:
https://phys.org/news/2021-08-nasa-rove ... ments.html

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Re: Random News not worthy of own thread

Post by Vertigo 7 » Tue, 10. Aug 21, 19:50

mr.WHO wrote:
Tue, 10. Aug 21, 17:51
I'd argue that privacy argument ends when someone consciously using the cloud in a first place.


On the other hand how Joe Diddleworth can prove if it was Apple who placed that on the cloud?
They have full control over cloud and knowledge of hardware and in the end the system greatest flaw is human factor.

What if Joe Diddleworth is a political activist?
Or even non political, but in some way on Apple blacklist (there is YT channel with a guy who has Apple repair shop and was exposing Apple bad repair service practices)?


I'd say the obvious choice would be to stop using Apple, but a few months ago Win10 basically conned me and put MyDocuments into cloud - there was a pop-up about "making a backup" with no mention of a cloud at all - I had to waste half an hour to switch it off coz my X4 saves took almost all of cloud storage.

If Microsoft ever try to push for cloud only, I'll say goodbye to Windows (albeit I doubt they will have enought storage space anytime soon, like in decade or two).
Image

Yep, totally misleading, much con was committed. Funny how that story keeps changing.

Anywho, you can "what if" all day long but it doesn't mean much. It's not like Apple or MS is going to arbitrarily decide that you have something interesting in your cloud data and dig through everything you have. If you wanna be afraid, go be afraid. I'm not gonna stop you. If you wanna store data in the cloud, then weigh your risk/reward appropriately and make up your own mind about it. If you wanna use it to save evidence of crimes, well... I'll encourage you to do it and call you a dumbass at the same time.

Regardless, if it asks you if you wanna use one drive, icloud, google crap, w/e to save your stuff, you can always say 'no'. And if you say 'yes' and change your mind, you can always turn it off practically whenever you want.
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Re: Random News not worthy of own thread

Post by mr.WHO » Tue, 10. Aug 21, 20:35

Vertigo 7 wrote:
Tue, 10. Aug 21, 19:50
Image

Yep, totally misleading, much con was committed. Funny how that story keeps changing.
It wasn't like that back then - it was simple pop-up in notification tab with "back up your folders" with no mention of the OneDrive - I honestly thought it supposed to be some kind of packed and hidden backup file like for windows restoration point.

Nice to see Microsoft made it more clear, as so far my only beef with Win10 was that many messages were too vague and prone to misinterpretation.

Edit:

I found the old image:

Image

It the led to similary vague screen where you selected the folders, very similar to your image, but without any mention of onedrive neither in text nor header.

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Re: Random News not worthy of own thread

Post by Vertigo 7 » Tue, 10. Aug 21, 21:08

And what happens when you click on view backup options from that notification, eh? Because things that appear in the notifications area are shortcuts to other areas and I'd bet a month's pay it takes you right into one drive settings.

I've been using one drive since it was in beta before Vista was released back when it was called Windows Live Folders, codenamed Sky Drive. I've installed Windows 10 many times and I've never been confused as to what I'm being asked to store in One Drive. It has always been clear and under my control.
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Re: Random News not worthy of own thread

Post by mr.WHO » Tue, 10. Aug 21, 21:27

Vertigo 7 wrote:
Tue, 10. Aug 21, 21:08
And what happens when you click on view backup options from that notification, eh? Because things that appear in the notifications area are shortcuts to other areas and I'd bet a month's pay it takes you right into one drive settings.
Now it leads to the screen you posted, but then it was the tiny box in notification screen like the one I provided - it had the same desktop/Pictures/Documents selectors, but no mention of OneDrive anywhere and header was just "backup your folders".

I wouldn't click yes, if there would be any mention of OneDrive.

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Re: Random News not worthy of own thread

Post by Vertigo 7 » Wed, 11. Aug 21, 04:16

Well, in the years it's been integrated into Windows and available as a stand alone package prior to Windows 8.1, it's never behaved that way except for you then. I guess you really do have reason to be afraid, MS is after ya!
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Re: Random News not worthy of own thread

Post by BaronVerde » Wed, 11. Aug 21, 10:04

a²+b²=c². Pythagoras.

Or is it ? Maybe thousand years older and date into late neolithic Mesopotamia:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.10 ... 21-09806-0

Popscience:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 123503.htm

Math/geometry at that time was generally used with less abstraction than today. It had its foundation in land survey and inventory of supply and storage and its distribution.

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Re: Random News not worthy of own thread

Post by BaronVerde » Tue, 17. Aug 21, 23:42

A fire raged on the island of San Miguel de La Palma today. It started in a town called El Paso, driven by temperatures over 40°C, gusts up to 90km/h and humidity below 10% the flames went downhill, leaping about the place carried by flying sparks and brand. 7 Helicopters, 100 firefighters with heavy equipment, a military emergency unit were (possibly are still, but I see no flames anymore from my place, which is just few km away as the crow flies) working to quench the flames. I seems to be under control, now that night has fallen.

More than 100 people lost their homes, cars burned, agricultural areas destroyed.

What do you think, how long does it take for a building, walls of stone, window and doorframes aluminium. tiled roof, to catch fire and burn out, from clean and shiny to smoldering ruin ? 2-3 minutes. And then comes a helicopter and drops 2-3 tons of water, which give it the rest, but of course also limit the flying firebrand to spread in the wind, and possible start a new fire elsewhere.

Causes of the fire are unknown as of now, possible spontaneous ignition in the weather conditions are imaginable.

Edit: Oh, nope, they just say that the fire is not under control and the meteorological situation is "the enemy tonight". But they also say that nobody was injured in the fire, everybody got to safety in time.

Edit: one day later (18.08.): the fire is under control. Besides dozens of burnt homes and damage to infrastructure and agriculture, at least two peole have died, one in a greenhouse, one was found in her burnt car. Around 20 people had to be treated for respiratory problems. The cause is still unclear but being investigated, but it is obvious that the fire started on the shoulder of a country road (at the right end of the red area in the map in the link below) and there were speculations it might have been a carelessly discarded cigarette stub.

Source (in Spanish):
https://elapuron.com/noticias/sociedad/ ... afectadas/

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Re: Random News not worthy of own thread

Post by BaronVerde » Sat, 28. Aug 21, 14:13

Orbiter, ancestor and trigger for realistic space simulation games like Kerbal Space Program and in itself probably the most realistic spaceflight simulation out there, has been released as an MIT licensed open source project by its maker. I haven't looked for quite a while, this may have happened some time ago already.

Unfortunately I still lack the math for such things, but am working on it.

https://github.com/orbitersim/orbiter

and

http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/

It is a 32 bit Windows application :roll: Of course I hope for a more modern 64 bit multi-platform fork, that would be cooooool :-)

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Re: Random News not worthy of own thread

Post by BaronVerde » Tue, 14. Sep 21, 10:31

Woke up this morning to a slight seismic shock of mag 3.9 and a disturbed (or just hungry) cat and when I looked I found its epicentre to be located a few km to the southwest at a depth of 9km below where I live.

Map of current earthquakes, those of 2021/09/14 might be found when scolling down, it is a dynamic earth we're living on ;-)
https://www.ign.es/resources/sismologia ... /prox.html#

This is the Cumbre Vieja volcano, which last erupted in 1972. There is an extensive network of surveillance stations for ground movement, seismic activity, and chemical analysis of gases escaping from the ground around here. A warning though: if you guys search the internet you may find colourful depictions of catastrophies and tsunamis triggered by a giant landslide of Cumbre Vieja's western flank. These are based on a work from Ward/Day, 2001, but have been debunked meanwhile and don't reflect the current view of geologists on the matter. Though flank failures are a landscape forming element and can trigger giant tsunamis, there's no imminent danger. Just saying.

Back to the case at hand, nothing is sure by now and the experts are observing in a raised state of alarm. It looks like magma has risen and is forming (The bulk earth is solid. Period. It needs specific conditions like pressure release and fluid mixture for magma to form) at a depth where mantle and crust meet, the Moho ("Mohorovičić discontinuity"). It may find its way to the surface, which can take years, happen in short time, or not for now.

Quite generally, eruptions (if they occur) here are mostly just effusive, that is to say magma simply flows out and downhill to the sea. There may be what's called strombolian phases, explosions and gas releases, but rather nothing that would blow away a mountain top.

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Re: Random News not worthy of own thread

Post by Alan Phipps » Wed, 15. Sep 21, 13:50

Environmental and climate-change activist protests are periodically blocking the very busy M25 London Orbital Motorway and causing massive and long-lasting queues of stationary private and business traffic. (Google 'Insulate Britain' if you want to know more.)

Of course, once the drivers stuck in the queues become aware of the reasons for them they will all switch their engines etc off, not slowly creep to bunch right up, and so do their bit to save the environment - won't they? :gruebel:
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Re: Random News not worthy of own thread

Post by BaronVerde » Wed, 15. Sep 21, 17:09

Ok, the seismic crisis mentioned above has intensified under the Cumbre Vieja edfice, and there's a displacement of the tremors towards where I live, well directly underneath to be precise, and has risen from a depth of 11km to ~5km now. I doubt I'll sleep tonight due to the seismics shocks. There's no structural damage until now and there's still a good chance that the sauce gets stuck in the crust, but we were told to be prepared to leave should there be a rapid development. Fortunately the surveillance network is very dense and a team of volcanologists is around, so there'll be enough time to grab the poor cat and go elsewhere.

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Re: Random News not worthy of own thread

Post by jlehtone » Wed, 15. Sep 21, 18:24

@Alan:
This line in Good Omens was fictional, wasn't it?
Many phenomena - wars, plagues, sudden audits - have been advanced as evidence for the hidden hand of Satan in the affairs of Man, but whenever students of demonology get together the M25 London orbital motorway is generally agreed to be among the top contenders for Exhibit A.
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